They Said He Raped and Burned a Teen Girl Alive. Now, Even the Victim’s Father Is Fighting to Set Him Free By Christina Coulter

Twenty-five years after 18-year-old Jessica Currin was killed and burned behind a Kentucky school, the man convicted of her murder still maintains his innocence — and, in a rare twist, the victim’s father is now asking the courts to take another look at the verdict ahead of a key fall court date.

Jessica’s father, Joe Currin, told CNN he supports reopening the case. “We’ve just always [been] hoping that the truth would bring itself out. But when you’ve got more people hiding the truth than you do trying to get to the truth, it’s kind of hard to do,” he said, according to CNN.

The case is now the subject of the latest season of the Bone Valley podcast. Hosted and produced by Wrongful Conviction host Maggie Freleng, the podcast, titled Bone Valley, Season 3: Graves County, takes a critical look at the investigation that led to the conviction of Quincy Omar Cross, who remains behind bars.

Jessica disappeared in late July 2000. Nearly two weeks later, her burned, decomposed body was found behind Mayfield Middle School in Mayfield, Ky., according to CNN and court records. Investigators recovered a black, braided belt near her body, and it quickly became central to the state’s theory.

Eight years later in 2008, after the case went cold and then gained new momentum, a Hickman County jury convicted Cross of capital kidnapping, murder, first-degree rape and sodomy, tampering with physical evidence and abuse of a corpse, and he was sentenced to life without parole, according to Kentucky Supreme Court records.

“There’s no DNA, no forensics, no physical evidence at all matching the accused,” Freleng, who spent two years investigating Jessica’s case, tells PEOPLE. “It’s built entirely on hearsay, recanted testimony, and shifting narratives.”

According to CNN’s summary of trial testimony, Jessica spent the night of July 29, 2000, playing cards at a friend’s house with her 16-year-old cousin, Vinisha Stubblefield, and then left to walk home.

Stubblefield testified she later rode in a car with Cross, Jeffrey Burton, and sisters Tamara and Victoria Caldwell; the group was high on pills, cocaine and marijuana, per CNN. The group found Jessica, offered her a ride and drove to Burton’s house, per Stubblefield’s testimony — there, she told jurors, Cross hit Jessica and forced her into a back bedroom.

She claimed she later saw Jessica unconscious on a bed as Cross pulled a belt around her neck, and that Burton assaulted Jessica while Cross encouraged others — including Stubblefield — to participate.

Victoria Caldwell also testified against Cross, CNN reported, telling jurors that Cross struck Jessica with a bat in the car and carried her inside Burton’s house while she was unconscious. Caldwell said Jessica briefly regained consciousness and repeated the name of her infant son as she was assaulted, and that Cross hit her with a metal tool and strangled her with a black, braided belt.

Caldwell testified the group wrapped Jessica’s body in a blanket and hid it in Burton’s garage, then later drove the body to the middle school and set it on fire when the smell became noticeable.

But Cross has always maintained a very different account. He told the Wrongful Conviction podcast that he was in Union City, Tenn., on July 29 with friends, driving around and buying drugs before heading back into Kentucky for a gathering on Chris Drive.

As the Saturday night turned into Sunday, he borrowed a car to get cigarettes, got lost and ran out of gas, he said. Graves County Deputy Sheriff Mike Perkins stopped to help, CNN reported.

Per CNN’s reporting on Perkins’ testimony, the deputy smelled gasoline on Cross and noticed he kept pulling up his pants because he wasn’t wearing a belt — details the prosecution emphasized to support its theory about the belt and the burning. Perkins allegedly found marijuana seeds and a gun in Cross’s car, and when he returned to Chris Drive he found Cross with “bags of powder and foil in his pockets,” per a Kentucky Innocence Project motion.

Cross was arrested on a drug charge early Sunday, July 30, and has said he first heard Jessica’s name after his arrest while he was in jail, according to CNN.

Even before Cross was charged, the investigation had taken a winding route. Police initially charged Jeremy Adams and Carlos Saxton with murder in 2001 — but those cases were dismissed in 2003 for discovery violations by local police, according to Kentucky appellate decisions.

With the case cold, members of the community kept pushing authorities to make an arrest. WKMS reported that Mayfield homemaker Susan Galbreath and several teenagers gathered tips and kept files, and that BBC journalist Tom Mangold also shared leads with investigators. WKMS later reported that their efforts helped ensure Cross’s 2008 conviction.

When Cross went to trial in 2008, the prosecution leaned heavily on testimony from Caldwell and Stubblefield. Caldwell also gave police a diary she said she wrote in 2000, which contained entries that supported her testimony.

But a Secret Service forensic chemist testified he could not match the diary ink to any commercially available 2000 formula, according to court records.

Over time, both Caldwell and Stubblefield changed their accounts. “The two main eyewitnesses weren’t nearly as reliable as the state claimed,” Freleng tells PEOPLE, adding, “They’ve since recanted significant parts, if not all, of their testimony.”

Jessica’s cause of death remains disputed. The state medical examiner discussed possible strangulation, citing the belt, but acknowledged under cross-examination that telltale signs were not visible because the remains were burned and decomposed, according to court records. Defense experts later challenged the state’s conclusion. Court records do not describe DNA or other laboratory evidence that linked Cross to the belt or the scene.

“The state… misled the jury by suggesting that the black braided belt found at the scene belonged to Quincy, when in fact there was no evidence linking it to him,” Freleng says.

“People were scared, angry, and desperate for answers,” she adds. “When someone stepped forward with a lead, the town wanted it to be true… Once a narrative took shape, people had tunnel vision at best and were deceitful at worst — that’s how wrongful convictions happen.”

After his conviction, Cross lost his direct appeal and a 2014 post-conviction motion was denied without an evidentiary hearing, according to appellate decisions. He remains incarcerated at Kentucky State Penitentiary. His legal team, joined by the Kentucky Innocence Project, is asking a judge to allow a full evidentiary hearing.

“The October 23 date is to argue for an evidentiary hearing,” Freleng tells PEOPLE. “If the judge agrees, everything presented at hearing will be included in the judge’s decision” on whether Cross should get a new trial. “Attorneys at KIP are very hopeful.”

“This story broke me open a few times mentally and emotionally,” Freleng says. “What keeps me going is the possibility of change… if an unfair system can be dismantled… then it’s worth it.”

PEOPLE has reached out to the Graves County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office and the Kentucky State Police for comment.

Bone Valley, Season 3: Graves County is available on all major podcast platforms.